Yesterday I attended a great social media networking meeting about the power of LinkedIn, but that's not
what this post is going to be about. This post is going to be about the power of networking.
The meeting that I went to was held at The Grove, which is a local co-working space in my city's downtown area and it is a weekly meetup called Social Media Sync, a group I found through Meetup.com. I had been attending these meetups on a regular basis but then I got extremely busy and stopped for a few months. What really motivated me to get back to these meetings was all the talk in the business community lately about networking.
We all know the importance of networking and how powerful it can be to our business, but there is something about that word that causes some people to break out into a cold sweat! I wasn't quite at that level, but I did initially feel uncomfortable about going into a room full of strangers and having a discussion.
Going through Meetup.com to find a networking group ensured that I would find a group that talked about topics I was interested in and wanted to learn more about; that helped to take away a lot of my initial nervousness and discomfort. The Social Media Sync group that I belong to is a perfect fit for me because social media is one of my specialties as a VA and the group itself is made up of small business owners, entrepreneurs, and start-ups: my target market!
I've spoken in the past about how I found my first client at this meetup group, so networking has been very beneficial for me. Add to this the fact that I get to learn about the latest trends in social media, interact and engage with my target market on a regular basis, and get a pancake breakfast all for free...why wouldn't I want to take advantage of that?
